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31/05/2007

Podsafe music is the term commonly used by podcasters to describe audio files that can be legally incorporated within podcasts without breaking traditional rules of copyright because they are covered by what is called a Creative Commons licence. This type of license acknowledges the author yet offers certain concessions to anyone wishing to use their work in a personal or non-commercial project.

To this end, here is a list of some podsafe sites I've compiled in my Del.icio.us account over the last year. However, I would strongly recommend that you first carefully read the individual licensing agreements for any track you may want to use so as to avoid any possible breach of copyright.

30/05/2007

Thanks to the efforts of many innovative teachers around the world wishing to explore the potential of new technologies in their practice, the idea of creating personalised digital resources in the form of podcasts has become far more mainstream. Many teachers and educationalists have now no doubt heard of the term podcasting, but may not know exactly what it means and how it can enhance learning.

Finding suitable information on the web can be time-consuming in the life of a busy teacher. The aim of this post is to offer shortcuts to those who would like to learn more about podcasting and be given pointers where to start researching.

To accompany the guide, Donald Clark Ufi Board member and advocate of e-learning and technology, discusses the benefits of podcasting as a way of combatting the dominance of text based resources in the 21st century, removing the 'clutter' of visual stimuli and offering an alternative form of learning. Download the guide from here in pdf format.

Likewise, Doug Dickinson educational ICT consultant and Softease developer has been promoting their new product Podium designed to simplify the process of podcasting in education. Earlier this month, Doug gave a demonstration at Trent University in Nottingham which you can watch here. You may also be interested in seeing the following clip shot by Leon Cych at BETT 2007, where Doug shows how to use the scripting tool in Podium. For a quick-start-guide of Podium written by ICT coordinator Simon Mills of Teachers TV fame click here.

Digital Deutsch is a new DVD collection of over 2500 authentic high quality digital photographs from the German speaking world published in cooperation with the AATG (American Association of Teachers of German) and funded by StADaF (Ständiger Ausschuss Deutsch als Fremdsprache/ Standing Committee for German as a Foreign Language) and Goethe-Institut. The images are license free and can therefore be used to embellish websites, blogs or classroom teaching materials. They are categorized according to topic (from Art/Architecture, Banking/Money, to Sports/Games, Telecommunications, and Transportation).

When I was asked to take on the role of languages and creative learning lead practitioner for The Trust twelve months ago, I had very high expectations of what I wanted to achieve and was looking forward to the challenge ahead. One of my main aims was to use the blog to support MFL teachers in the use of technology by:

writing simple and straightforward articles with relevant accompanying links to facilitate further research

hosting multimedia files of conference sessions so colleagues could access resources in their own time

interviewing practising teachers who are involved in innovative practice

encouraging teachers to share their ideas by leaving comments and asking questions

By remaining true to this central aim, the blog has proved to be a very effective way of networking with colleagues from around the world and nurturing a community of like-minded readers. It has also been incredibly rewarding for my own CPD and has given me the opportunity to reflect deeply on my own practice. Despite some initial concerns over selling my blogging soul I'm very pleased that I did nonetheless decide to join the blogosphere last year and create a new market as a result.

Below is a summary of the activities I've blogged about over the last twelve months wearing my LP hat including training events such as the Isle of Wight conference, interviews with innovative colleagues, Skypecasts and Flashmeetings.

A year on, I'm delighted to say that I've been asked to carry on the lead practitioner role for a further twelve months and am relishing the prospect of supporting more MFL teachers in my local area and further a field. More and more language teachers are now blogging and podcasting in England and although we still have a long way to go, we should take heart in what has been achieved to date. Judging by the piechart above generated by 100 voters on my Vizu poll this blog is certainly highly rated and fit for purpose, but what do the rest of you think?

The new languages of technology - MFL blogging and podcasting in primary schools

PrimaryLanguages - the new CILT website designed to provide CPD training for KS2 language teachers

Getting started with ICT - Internet, eTwinning and interactive whiteboards

InfoDIRECT - interactive whiteboard - friendly ICT resources

On page 3 of the bulletin both Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom and the TES ICT blog are acknowledged as sources for some of the information written about primary blogging which was nice to see. It would be even nicer though to see more primary schools blogging in England and drawing from such excellent examples as Woodhill, Inchinnan and Kirklandneuk north of the border. C'mon guys, let's blog!

Here is a summary of our conversation about how we as teachers are using new technologies to collaborate with each other and our students to enhance teaching and learning in the 21st century classroom. The Skypepcast is divided into three main parts:

14/05/2007

MFL teacher Joe Dale explains how sound can be added to PowerPoint presentations to engage pupils, reinforce pronunciation and help personalise learning

Inserting audio files into PowerPoint can transform a presentation into something more engaging and meaningful. For a MFL teacher, this could mean the voice of a native speaker, a song in the target language, an aural prompt or a sound indicating a right or wrong answer. Using free software such as Audacity and an inexpensive microphone, it is easy to record sound and export it for use in the classroom.

In my experience, pupils are always intrigued when they see a loudspeaker icon on the interactive whiteboard and want to hear what sound it may emit when clicked. Sounds can bring a presentation to life and catch the attention of the more reluctant learner.

There are various ways of inserting sounds into a PowerPoint presentation depending on the type of audio file you have and the effect you want to create. Two common formats are wav and mp3. The former can be embedded in a presentation, but is larger in size as opposed to the latter which may be smaller, but can only be linked, meaning it must be stored in the same folder as the presentation, but cannot be integrated within it. For more explanation of the differences of embedding and linking files in PowerPoint, click here

CDex is a free program which allows the user to change the mp3 file extension or 'riff' of an audio clip to wav and retain its file size at the same time. The process known as riff-ing is useful because it means that smaller files can therefore be embedded into a presentation and do not need to be linked to separately.

To riff an mp3 file, launch CDex and click on the Convert menu. Select Add RIFF-WAV(s) header to MP2 or MP3 file(s). In the next window, click on the three dots top right to browse for the folder where your mp3 files are stored. Select it and click OK. You should then be able to see the available mp3 files in that folder. Hold down the Shift key and select the ones you want to convert. Click Convert. If you now go back to the folder where the original files are, you will see that they have been duplicated and have wav extensions. You can check by right clicking the new files and selecting Properties. Type of file will say Wave sound, but the file size will not have changed.

Being able to embed mp3 files with wav extensions is a neat little trick because it means that you can create standalone presentations with self-contained audio which are considerably smaller in size than their wav equivalents.

So what different ways are there for inserting audio files into PowerPoint to create different effects? Here are some ideas:

Narration

Adding narration to individual slides can be used to personalise and reinforce vocabulary presentations, create talking big books or photo-stories and help GCSE students revise for their coursework. To do this, click on Insert Movies and Sound and then Sound from File. Select the converted mp3 file you want to embed and click OK. You will then be asked how you want the sound to start in the slide show either automatically or when clicked. Having made your choice, a loudspeaker icon will appear in the centre of your slide and you can choose whether you want to position it on or off the slide.

Playing Sounds Across Slides

To add a narration which plays over a number of slides, go to the slide where you want your audio to begin and click on the Slide Show menu and then Slide Transition. Click on the dropdown menu next to Sound, then scroll down and select Other Sound ... Find your audio file as before and click OK. Next, tick the box which says Loop until next sound and go to the slide where you want the narration to stop. Follow the same procedures to bring up the Slide Transition dialogue box and instead of selecting Other Sound ..., click Stop Previous Sound.

Action Settings and Action Buttons

As well as directly inserting sound files into a slide, you can also attach audio files to an image or text box as a sound effect or auditory prompt. Just right-click any object and select Action Settings ... Make sure the Play sound box is ticked and then click on the dropdown menu underneath and select Other Sound ... Browse as before and click OK. In addition, you can choose whether to play the sound by clicking on it or by hovering over with the mouse by selecting the appropriate tab at the top of the Action Settings dialogue box.

You can also use an Action Button to launch your audio. To do this, go to the Slide Show menu again and hover the cursor over Action Buttons. Twelve different types of Action Button will then appear and you will probably want to choose the one with a loudspeaker on it although you can attach a sound to any one of them. Upon clicking on your chosen button, your cursor will turn into a black cross. Hold down your left-click and create the size of button you want by dragging accordingly. When you release the mouse the Action Settings dialogue box will then appear and you follow the same instructions as above for attaching a sound to it.

Custom Animation

Another way of adding sound is through Custom Animation. Not only can you make objects and text appear and disappear or move them around the screen to reinforce a grammar point such as er verb endings, you can also play a sound file at the same time for emphasis and to grab attention. Here, you have to right click the item you want to animate and select Custom Animation. Click Add Effect and choose an appropriate animation. Then click on the dropdown menu by the selected item and click Effect Options. Click on the next dropdown menu next to Sound. Scroll down to Other Sound ... Browse as before and click OK.

There are other ways of incorporating sound into PowerPoint too such as by recording narration directly into a slide with Windows Sound Recorder or byplaying a CD track through a presentation. However, both have their drawbacks. The former will produce a wav recording which potentially could be very large in size and the latter requires you to keep the original CD containing the track in the drive during playback. If you own the copyright of the recording, you can rip it using readily available software such as Windows Media Player and then embed it afterwards as described above.

However, if you are looking for music sites which do let you legally use their audio files to enhance your presentations, you can choose from the list I've compiled in my Del.icio.us account under podsafe which is covered by the Creative Commons licence. To make life easier, I've included it as a tagroll in the left hand sidebar of my blog.

My favourite site from the list is Flashkit which has a large selection of loops which you can download and freely use as long as you acknowledge the author. These short clips last on average between five and twenty seconds and are therefore ideal for presentations or podcasts. For sound effects, FindSounds is a great site to explore. Read about their copyright policy here.

The digital age has arrived and as some high street stores decide to reject old technology and no longer stock audio cassettes despite examining boards still insisting that oral exams are recorded upon them, we find ourselves in the fortunate position of being able to be far more creative and flexible with how we choose to use audio in the 21st century.

Making mp3 files is straightforward and can help to personalise learning. Listening is an important skill, particularly in languages where it can be used to improve pronunciation and reinforce meaning. Now that we have the technology in our schools, let's not allow our pupils to power down in class, but use these tools to enhance our lessons and bring PowerPoint back to life. Sounds interesting? Let's embed the idea.

During my first Feedwhip of the day, I was quite intrigued to find the post Cup of Joe School 2.0 Style in my email inbox as it included a picture of a coffee cup with the words Cup of Joe emblazoned across the front and the title Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom above its head. The post appeared on LostJohns a blog by Alabama Spanish teacher Bill Bishop who was writing about a comment I'd left on his previous post 100th Blog Post and Silvia Tolisano where I'd shared links to Silvia-related articles I'd blogged about in the last year.

So why the title Cup of Joe School 2.0 Style? Well, I knew like me, Bill had recently joined a Ning social network called School 2.0 set up by Steve Hargadon, a blogger from the States. So that accounted for the second part, but I was still stumped by the first. Following a bit of research via Wikipedia, I discovered that in fact the term Cup of Joe is an American nickname for coffee and that Bill, despite being a self-confessed non coffee drinker, was therefore seemingly suggesting that my visit to his blog had been just the cup of Joe he had needed for the day. This was very flattering and proof of the power of Web 2.0 tools to connect language teachers around the world.